


You Are My Reality

by flowersandteeth



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Endgame, Reincarnation, Short One Shot, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 18:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20643785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersandteeth/pseuds/flowersandteeth
Summary: [[Based on OTP prompt:  “things you said under the stars and in the grass”]]Multiverse AU - Tony and Peter are regular college students who met and became inseparable. When they’ve been dating for a few months, Tony finally tells Peter about the memories that do and don’t belong to him.





	You Are My Reality

“I remember dying,” Tony whispers. “It’s like a dream…or a movie. Me and not me at the same time.”

He’s flat on his back in the cool grass, staring up at the star-speckled velvet of the night sky, and he feels so small. Too small for the enormous truth he’s spilling.

“I can…I can see everything so clearly. Aliens. Monsters. Heroes. There’s–God, there’s fighting and people dying, and then he looks at me, and I’m it, I’m the last hope. Fuck, I know I’m going to–I’m–” His throat catches before the words can come tumbling out, the words he hears ringing in his head at night, ringing right now.

There’s a subtle rustling beside him, Peter shifting around.

“You’re…?” his boyfriend murmurs, cautious and encouraging.

Tony half laughs, something old and painful and victorious nagging at the back of his mind, eyes stinging with sudden, hot tears.

“I’m. I’m Iron Man.”

He shuts his eyes against the familiar deluge of emotions, feelings that don’t actually belong to him, so much good and bad and _done_, finished, _complete_. Whoever he’d been, that man had made a sacrifice too big for who he is now to ever understand. All he gets are these midnight showings of a world that Tony never knew.

But he knows _Peter_. Knew him from the moment he first laid eyes on his new classmate almost half a year ago. His dream self had known someone like him, cared for someone like him, and Tony hadn’t even made a choice, he’d just known he was going to care for the one he’d found, here.

There’s a good chance he might be losing him, now, telling him about it. Telling him the things his parents made him swear to stop talking about when he was young, the things that, after a certain age, wouldn’t have been excusable as products of an active imagination. He’s telling Peter the things that might mean he’s crazy, and it’s…a sacrifice. An offering.

A hope.

God, does he hope. He hopes so hard it’s almost prayer, begging something that Peter will stay, will still love him. That Tony will still get to see the way his nose wrinkles when he laughs, and how he looks when he’s riding Tony’s lap wearing nothing but one of Tony’s sweatshirts, that he’ll still get to hear the fond exasperation when Peter has to drag him to bed when he’s up too late drawing. He can’t lose Peter.

In the silence between them, though, he knows he’d let him go, if Peter wanted to leave.

Tony flinches in surprise when fingers brush his. Before he can worry that Peter might take it the wrong way, his boyfriend’s twining their hands together in an almost painful grip.

“Tony, babe…”

Peter’s voice is tight and trembling, and now Tony feels terrible, knows he shouldn’t have said anything, shouldn’t have given this to Peter to hold on to–

“…I remember, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I cried writing this, and I hope you also got some feels.
> 
> follow me on Tumblr - @flowersandteeth


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